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7 Tips for Project Management Delegation & Follow-Up

Keep your team on track to finish on time and under budget. Here are some pro tips from industry leaders on how to efficiently follow up on delegation and lead your team to grow in productivity and skill.

1. Checking In Is Not A Power Play

When you take a moment to gauge the progress of your team, you can either empower or belittle your crew, it’s up to you. By keeping it brief and moving on to the next item, your crew learns that you trust them and have confidence in their work. Be ready to bring correction when necessary, but be just as ready to deal out a compliment when you see excellent work. You’ll see your guys’ confidence and skill grow over time to match your faith in them.

2. Inspect What You Expect (And Vice Versa)

If you expect to see progress on delegated tasks, it is vital that your team knows you will be inspecting their progress periodically. They will come to expect an inspection, and will be ready for it. If, on the other hand, you’re not checking in on delegated work in some way, you will see productivity slip and your bottom line will suffer for it.

3. Follow-Up With Everyone (Yes, Everyone)

Regular check-ins are not reserved for the new guys. Even the most self-sufficient veterans on your team appreciate feedback. It doesn’t slow anyone down to quickly report that things are on schedule, and it speeds everyone up to report that things are behind!

4. Don’t Micro Manage

With regular check-ins comes the temptation to micro-manage. Don’t do it. Regular check-ins should be quick, routine, to the point, black-and-white. Try not to get hung up on the details; let your team do their job. Just gauge progress and move on. You can make yourself available for questions, but don’t get sucked into the black hole of micro-management.

5. Use Automated Task Lists

This is the digital age. You have a computer in your pocket. Use it. Project management software, designed specifically for builders, gives you the power to create task lists, assign them instantly to specific users within the system, and even send them the notification of their new delegated task automatically, saving you a phone call. With this system you can easily check in on progress without a meeting, a phone call, a text or an email.

6. Seal Up The Cracks

With digital tasks lists, you can set up automated reminders in advance to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. This system keeps an action item on a user’s radar until it is finished: no ignoring it, no forgetting it, it’s there until it’s done.

7. Let Your Tools Do The Work

Today construction project management apps allow you to keep all the information for all of your projects in one place and accessible to everyone on the job. With the right tool you can access any information you need in under 10 seconds at any given time: task lists, site photos, lines of communication, budgets, timelines, and more. No more shuffling through notebooks.

Every aspect of homebuilding rides on having the right tools. Be sure to have a system that works for you. With a system that was actually designed by homebuilders, you will have all the tools you need to manage client relations right there in your pocket at all times. Learn more about project management software here.

About the Author:Sven GustafsonPresident, Stonewood, LLC - Custom Home Builder

As a 4th generation custom home builder with a software development background, Sven created BuildTools to help his company have a "connection point" for everyone in the building process.